by R. Lucas Stamps

Christmas starts earlier every year. It’s not unusual to see the candy aisle at the local supermarket well-stocked with Christmas confections the day after Halloween. Christmas music can be found on certain radio stations throughout November and December. The long-awaited red cups and gingerbread lattes show up just as early in Starbucks. Small wonder. We long for the joy and nostalgia of Christmas. We cling to it as long as possible. We lament the moment when the final present is opened or the last meal shared on Christmas Day. December 26 is perhaps the most dreaded day of the year on many personal calendars.

But there is an older framing of the holiday season that gives space not only for mirth but also for mourning, and in the process places joy in its proper context, allowing it to shine with its full brilliance after the long night of darkness. The season of Advent, the four Sundays before the Feast of the Nativity (December 25), marks the beginning of the traditional church year. Originally, Advent was a time for remembering, not the first, but the second advent of the Lord: his appearing on the last day to judge the living and the dead (for more on this history, see this excellent book). The four Sundays of Advent often commemorated the so-called quattuor novissima, the “four last things”: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. The hymns and carols of the season carefully resisted the pull toward joy and celebration and focused instead on themes of longing, yearning, and hope. The famous “O Antiphons” are indicative, with the most well-known antiphon crying out, “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.” Another traditional Advent hymn invites us to “look from afar” and “see the power of God coming, and a cloud covering the whole earth.” This older liturgical tradition can seem jarring to our holiday sensibilities, and yet, if we are bold enough to be honest with ourselves, it rings truer to our experience.

The joyful mystery of the Nativity is set against the backdrop of pain. The coming of the Lord only makes sense to a people who know what it means to wait—to a “people prepared,” as Zechariah prays in his Benedictus (Luke 1:17). Advent invites us, like righteous Simeon and faithful Anna, to wait for the consolation of Israel and the redemption of Jerusalem (Luke 2:25, 38). Advent is not about sappy sentimentalism, gauzy nostalgia, and cheap grace. It is about a “weary world” in desperate need of rejoicing. The land of Advent is spotted with deep valleys, impassable mountains, and crooked paths (Isaiah 40:4). As the Lord himself would remind us, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17).

And so, Advent welcomes our mourning. It has a place for our pain. It allows us the freedom to be honest about our losses, either through our own sins or the sins of others. It tunes our heart to sing, not only of God’s grace, but also of our sin and guilt and suffering. To be sure, we already live in the luminous reality of the first advent. No season of the year is entirely devoid of that joy. We need not pretend otherwise for some kind of pious effect. But we also live in the time between the times, in the overlap of the ages. The kingdom of Christ has been definitively inaugurated through the incarnation, birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, but it is not here in its full glory and felicity. We, too, wait for consolation and redemption. And in this liminal space between the two advents, we can welcome a third, “middle advent,” as many spiritual writers have articulated: the coming of Christ in our hearts through the ministry of the church and personal devotion.

The season of Advent invites us to a kind of delayed gratification. We mourn before we rejoice. We sing of our weariness and captivity before we herald “Joy to the World!” In some traditions, Advent, like Lent before Easter, is a penitential season of fasting and self-examination. Only after the long night of sorrow can we rejoice that “the dayspring from on high” has visited us (Luke 1:78). Advent reminds us that Jesus didn’t come to a people who had their stuff together. He came to a broken world longing for healing.

With all of this in view, I would invite you to craft your own spiritual rule this Advent, one that centers mourning rather than joy, longing rather than realization. Obviously, none of these things are binding. The church year itself is not binding. But it is a useful tool for framing our time as sacred and centered on the whole life of Christ.

• Limit your holiday music (as much as you can!) to Advent themed songs until Christmas Day. Sing “Come Thou long expected Jesus” before you get to “Joy to the World! The Lord is come!” Create your own playlist of Advent hymns and carols.

• Read traditional Advent texts from Scripture. Consider using a lectionary (a list of readings) like this one.

• Consider fasting for one meal or one full day each week. You might even consider abstinence from something you would otherwise enjoy during this season, as many do during Lent.

• Practice these spiritual disciplines with others. Even if you don’t attend a church that observes the church year, you can still practice these rhythms with your family, roommates, or friends.

The good news is, mourning eventually gives way to joy. In the church calendar, Christmas isn’t a single day but an entire season! We call it Christmastide, the famed “twelve days of Christmas” that we forgot actually existed! And Christmastide gives way to Epiphany, which expands the joy, as we celebrate the manifestation of the Lord to the nations. Epiphany is traditionally marked by a reflection on the Visit of the Magi, when the Gentiles first meet their Savior, and the Baptism of the Lord, when the Triune God is manifested in the Jordan. Lent follows Epiphany, as we once again enter into a season of repentance, fasting, giving, and praying before the sorrowful mysteries of the Passion and the glorious mysteries of Easter. After seven weeks of Eastertide, we move on to the Ascension and to Pentecost, which frame our “ordinary time” as life in the Spirit. And so, the whole church year takes us through what John Calvin called the “whole course of Christ’s obedience”: from his advent to his birth to his ephipany to his suffering and death to his resurrection and ascension to his gift of the Spirit and back again. What joy awaits us as we are set to begin a new church year! For those hidden with Christ in God, mourning never has the last word. “He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him” (Psalm 126:6).